Viscount Rhyl: The lead vessel of her class,
Viscount Rhyl was laid
down before the 5th Frontier War. Despite having a MANS subsidy and
being close to completion, her construction at the Bilstein Yards in
Glisten was suspended for the duration of the war when the naval
merchant shipping board felt the vessel wasn’t needed for the war
effort. Construction was resumed when news of the armistice reached
Glisten and Viscount Rhyl took her maiden flight within the year. The
packet is a larger version of her predecessors; all are cylinders whose
thrust is perpendicular to their decks. The packet’s passenger
accommodations are separated from other parts of the vessel by two
100-dTon cargo bays. Forward/“above” the passenger and cargo sections
are crew quarters and the bridge with most of the vessel’s fuel tankage
further forward towards the bow. Aft/“below” the passenger and cargo
sections are the ship’s engineering spaces and boat hangar.

Because they fly between large ports where interface craft are
available, the vessels carry no small craft beyond a single launch and
no cargo handling craft. The packets spend only that time necessary for
refueling and the transfer of cargo in the Weiss and Havrosette systems.
Passengers may embark or disembark in those systems, but they will need
to arrange for transport between the packets and the planet. In the
Grote, Glisten, and Strouden systems the packets will either dock at the
system highports or passenger shuttles will be available.

In the packet’s three “terminus” systems, the 48 hour turn around period
is hectic. Fueling will begin while the packet is still inbound, as will
cargo transfers. New ship stores are brought aboard before all the
passengers have disembarked. A large cleaning and repair crew also
boards as soon as possible to being tackling a work list which was
radioed ahead when the packet exited jump space. Crew rotations are also
made at this time, but no crewman walks away from the packet’s work
until the ship is outbound for the jump limit.

Because the packets officially sell only middle passages, and
accommodate high passengers on only rare occasions, they can quickly
unload and load passengers en masse. A single shuttle can handle all of
a packet’s passengers. Embarking and disembarking occur at times that
are convenient for the packet and typically “out of sync” with local
clocks.

The continuous effort the DiGroat Packet Line to maintain their 400-hour
schedule pays off as the ships make their scheduled departures well over
99% of the time.